WEBVTT 00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:05.900 Hello. In the Crown of Aragon, 639 years ago, 00:00:06.440 --> 00:00:12.839 it was January 18th, 1387. My name is Jonathan 00:00:12.839 --> 00:00:16.179 Seyfried. I'm a PhD candidate in history at the 00:00:16.179 --> 00:00:19.679 University of New Mexico. And this is the Historian's 00:00:19.679 --> 00:00:23.559 Notebook, a podcast about how history gets made. 00:00:23.839 --> 00:00:28.739 Season one is titled Molt Cara Companyona. We're 00:00:28.739 --> 00:00:31.839 looking at a document from each day of the first 00:00:31.839 --> 00:00:35.740 year of the reign of King Joan I of Aragon and 00:00:35.740 --> 00:00:39.340 Queen Violant de Bar. We have so many documents 00:00:39.340 --> 00:00:43.100 to choose from because of a gigantic digitization 00:00:43.100 --> 00:00:47.439 of the Archive of the Crown of Aragon and the 00:00:47.439 --> 00:00:51.399 abundance of paper that was available in the 00:00:51.399 --> 00:00:55.460 14th century for the chancery scribes to write 00:00:55.460 --> 00:00:59.759 down all kinds of documents about just dozens 00:00:59.759 --> 00:01:04.680 and dozens every single day. Let's begin today's 00:01:04.680 --> 00:01:35.200 document. Cartas Reales. That is the name of 00:01:35.200 --> 00:01:38.079 the part of the Archive of the Crown of Aragon 00:01:38.079 --> 00:01:46.099 that has outgoing letters the actual letters 00:01:46.099 --> 00:01:50.299 that were sent out. Sometimes they arrived back 00:01:50.299 --> 00:01:53.659 to the Archive of the Crown of Aragon through 00:01:53.659 --> 00:01:58.959 one way or another. and there's at times hundreds 00:01:58.959 --> 00:02:03.379 of these, and not all of them have been digitized 00:02:03.379 --> 00:02:07.200 or cataloged, so a lot of the Cartas Reales we 00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:11.000 don't really know what's in there. Furthermore, 00:02:12.060 --> 00:02:16.180 in a situation that has got me quite kerfuffled, 00:02:16.759 --> 00:02:21.830 it seems that There's Cartas Reales on PARES, 00:02:22.050 --> 00:02:26.110 the website for the grand digitization project 00:02:26.110 --> 00:02:29.490 that the Spanish government undertook for several 00:02:29.490 --> 00:02:31.909 archives across the country. The Archive of the 00:02:31.909 --> 00:02:36.169 Crown of Aragon is only one of them. There's 00:02:36.169 --> 00:02:41.110 on that section of the website a link for the 00:02:41.110 --> 00:02:45.689 Cartas Reales of Pere the Ceremonious. There's 00:02:45.689 --> 00:02:51.689 a link for the Cartas Reales for Martí, who took 00:02:51.689 --> 00:02:57.389 over for Joan after Joan died. Succeeded him 00:02:57.389 --> 00:03:00.009 to the throne would be the proper way of saying 00:03:00.009 --> 00:03:04.849 that. Why? Because they didn't, Violant and 00:03:04.849 --> 00:03:07.610 Joan didn't have any surviving male children, 00:03:07.789 --> 00:03:11.009 and Martí therefore was the next in line to the 00:03:11.009 --> 00:03:19.960 throne in 1396. All right, so Main point. There's 00:03:19.960 --> 00:03:25.979 no link to get to the Cartas Reales for Joan. 00:03:26.699 --> 00:03:31.300 And I don't know why. And I've tried to find 00:03:31.300 --> 00:03:33.800 it some other way, doing some searches on PARES. 00:03:33.939 --> 00:03:37.860 I haven't been able to find it. So today's document 00:03:37.860 --> 00:03:41.280 is one of the Cartas Reales, but it's actually 00:03:41.280 --> 00:03:44.460 not coming from PARES. It's coming from another 00:03:44.460 --> 00:03:49.509 website put together by the Fondo Historico de 00:03:49.509 --> 00:03:53.849 Aragon, a separate project that's actually taking 00:03:53.849 --> 00:03:57.449 digitized material from the archive of the Crown 00:03:57.449 --> 00:03:59.449 of Aragon, and also I think some other archives 00:03:59.449 --> 00:04:03.770 too, and organizing and cataloging it. And they've 00:04:03.770 --> 00:04:06.590 put up thousands of documents on their website, 00:04:07.150 --> 00:04:12.849 and today's document is from there. It is super 00:04:12.849 --> 00:04:15.210 interesting to look at because we get a chance 00:04:15.210 --> 00:04:20.379 to see what the actual outgoing document looked 00:04:20.379 --> 00:04:23.199 like, the one that would actually be delivered 00:04:23.199 --> 00:04:28.019 to the recipient. Because remember, every single 00:04:28.019 --> 00:04:32.019 document that we have looked at thus far is a 00:04:32.019 --> 00:04:36.660 copy. It's a copy that the Chancery staff made 00:04:36.660 --> 00:04:41.600 for the internal record keeping. So the actual 00:04:42.559 --> 00:04:45.920 document the real one, I guess you could say 00:04:45.920 --> 00:04:49.899 the original, got mailed out. And when I say 00:04:49.899 --> 00:04:53.680 mail, it's not like they put it in like the postal 00:04:53.680 --> 00:04:57.540 box or service. It's done by courier. So there 00:04:57.540 --> 00:05:01.500 was a piece of paper that was given to the courier 00:05:01.500 --> 00:05:04.839 and the exact words that were on that piece of 00:05:04.839 --> 00:05:07.879 paper were copied into the registers that we've 00:05:07.879 --> 00:05:11.160 been looking at for the previous 24 episodes 00:05:11.160 --> 00:05:15.000 and the scribe that did the copying would put 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:19.100 in the probata, the attestation that what they 00:05:19.100 --> 00:05:23.720 copied into the register was exactly what was 00:05:23.720 --> 00:05:27.939 going out on the other piece of paper to the 00:05:27.939 --> 00:05:35.120 recipient. Now today we have not only the front 00:05:35.120 --> 00:05:37.899 of the paper, but also an image of the back of 00:05:37.899 --> 00:05:43.199 the paper and its fold lines. So this is just 00:05:43.199 --> 00:05:49.100 really neat to see. And you can tell on the the 00:05:49.100 --> 00:05:52.220 front of it that the exterior of it and the way 00:05:52.220 --> 00:05:55.500 that it was folded you can see the remnant of 00:05:55.500 --> 00:06:01.680 the wax seal so when the document is being sent 00:06:01.680 --> 00:06:06.779 out under the seal the secret seal or this one's 00:06:06.779 --> 00:06:09.160 actually not the secret seal this is a different 00:06:09.160 --> 00:06:11.819 kind of seal they're literally talking about 00:06:11.819 --> 00:06:18.620 what kind of seal in wax is going to be dripped 00:06:18.620 --> 00:06:25.319 onto the paper and then chunk stamped with, you 00:06:25.319 --> 00:06:27.180 know, one type of seal or another. And depending 00:06:27.180 --> 00:06:29.160 on the seal, I think it would be treated differently. 00:06:29.199 --> 00:06:31.660 Like maybe, oh gosh, I'm just guessing here, 00:06:31.779 --> 00:06:34.879 like only the most trusted couriers would be 00:06:34.879 --> 00:06:41.139 allowed to carry the secret seal documents. That 00:06:41.139 --> 00:06:43.560 I am not quite sure of. I have to research that 00:06:43.560 --> 00:06:47.600 a little bit more. but in this instance it's 00:06:47.600 --> 00:06:50.279 very clear on the exterior of the letter you 00:06:50.279 --> 00:06:52.920 can see all that red and then it actually bleeds 00:06:52.920 --> 00:06:54.720 through the paper so that when you're looking 00:06:54.720 --> 00:06:58.339 at the interior of the letter you can see where 00:06:58.339 --> 00:07:01.149 some of the wax kind of over time soaked through, 00:07:01.269 --> 00:07:03.790 or maybe, you know, in that time it was also 00:07:03.790 --> 00:07:06.290 soaking through, but it doesn't hurt the legibility 00:07:06.290 --> 00:07:08.910 of the document. And you can also see where it 00:07:08.910 --> 00:07:11.470 was folded. And these papers, they were folded 00:07:11.470 --> 00:07:14.750 in special ways. And there's actually someone 00:07:14.750 --> 00:07:19.509 that is at the University of New Mexico now, 00:07:19.870 --> 00:07:22.850 an undergraduate studying medieval history, who's 00:07:22.850 --> 00:07:27.449 really done a whole lot of research into how 00:07:27.449 --> 00:07:30.129 the letters could be locked through folding and 00:07:30.129 --> 00:07:32.689 how the seals worked. And I'm going to put a 00:07:32.689 --> 00:07:38.550 link to his Etsy website where you can order 00:07:38.550 --> 00:07:44.910 a authentically sealed letter from him. And he's 00:07:44.910 --> 00:07:47.050 put a lot of research into it. It's pretty neat. 00:07:47.629 --> 00:07:51.829 So there's just the whole other realm of sigillography, 00:07:52.550 --> 00:07:56.740 the study of medieval seals, which actually can 00:07:56.740 --> 00:08:00.579 provide a lot of very helpful information about 00:08:00.579 --> 00:08:06.439 the larger context. Some of the symbols on the 00:08:06.439 --> 00:08:11.379 seals are kind of, in a way, analogous to how 00:08:11.379 --> 00:08:14.180 coins, the symbols on coins, would be chosen 00:08:14.180 --> 00:08:18.540 and what that would be attempting to communicate 00:08:18.540 --> 00:08:24.300 about the values of the society and the political 00:08:24.300 --> 00:08:26.959 structures of the time. So there's a whole field 00:08:26.959 --> 00:08:30.560 of sigillography, the study of seals, just like 00:08:30.560 --> 00:08:33.659 there's the field of numismatics for the study 00:08:33.659 --> 00:08:38.690 of the coins. This particular document, it's 00:08:38.690 --> 00:08:42.870 a long Latin document and I did not transcribe 00:08:42.870 --> 00:08:46.190 or attempt to translate it because the folks 00:08:46.190 --> 00:08:50.009 over at the Fondo Historico de Aragon have summarized 00:08:50.009 --> 00:08:52.730 it for me and I know I don't need to go too deeply 00:08:52.730 --> 00:08:55.690 into this probably for my research purposes. 00:08:55.830 --> 00:08:59.009 I can always come back to it later. But this 00:08:59.009 --> 00:09:04.120 is a letter of protection. And it's a letter 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:09.179 of protection for someone from Zaragoza. And 00:09:09.179 --> 00:09:12.340 what's interesting, I can give you a little bit 00:09:12.340 --> 00:09:16.659 of a hint here. On the fourth line, like pretty 00:09:16.659 --> 00:09:22.139 much in, well, like 75 % along the line, you'll 00:09:22.139 --> 00:09:26.740 see a big capital C and then a punctuation mark 00:09:26.740 --> 00:09:29.879 looks sort of like an exclamation point with 00:09:29.879 --> 00:09:34.419 sort of a angle diagonal line for the exclamation 00:09:34.419 --> 00:09:37.059 it's not actually an exclamation point it's just 00:09:37.059 --> 00:09:40.399 marking the end of a phrase or a clause and then 00:09:40.399 --> 00:09:43.620 there's another capital C that second capital 00:09:43.620 --> 00:09:49.259 C starts the word carissimo but what comes before 00:09:49.259 --> 00:09:54.679 is actually full of abbreviation and flourish 00:09:54.679 --> 00:10:02.899 Cesar Augusta Cesar Augusta and That is the Latin 00:10:02.899 --> 00:10:08.980 name for Zaragoza. So if you say Cesar Augusta 00:10:08.980 --> 00:10:12.940 very fast, it turns into Zaragoza, and that's 00:10:12.940 --> 00:10:16.379 where the name of Zaragoza Spain comes from. 00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:21.879 Cesar Augusta. Augustus Caesar. They named the 00:10:21.879 --> 00:10:29.000 place after Augustus in Roman times. So that's 00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:35.299 a fun little continuity that you can share at 00:10:35.299 --> 00:10:40.519 parties during trivia time. But there's one other 00:10:40.519 --> 00:10:43.419 thing about this letter that I want to point 00:10:43.419 --> 00:10:47.399 out. I had mentioned that this was not sent under 00:10:47.399 --> 00:10:52.990 the secret seal. So on the last full line of 00:10:52.990 --> 00:10:57.330 the letter, we've got the location and the date. 00:10:58.029 --> 00:10:59.710 So I'm going to read that from the beginning 00:10:59.710 --> 00:11:23.500 of the line. And then this next word I think 00:11:23.500 --> 00:11:29.539 is ASSUETO. I think it's A -S -S -U -E -T -O. 00:11:29.779 --> 00:11:33.659 Could be a C -O at the end. And then you've got 00:11:33.659 --> 00:11:39.899 D -A, and then the date, X -V -I -I -I, Roman 00:11:39.899 --> 00:11:46.700 numeral 18. And then... January the R is in the 00:11:46.700 --> 00:11:51.659 macron above actually the It's it's just that 00:11:51.659 --> 00:11:55.820 it's the Jan U There's a lot that's missing 00:11:55.820 --> 00:11:59.480 from from from January there that's taken care 00:11:59.480 --> 00:12:03.059 of by the macron and then the next is getting 00:12:03.059 --> 00:12:08.200 into the year, so What I wanted to point out 00:12:08.200 --> 00:12:10.899 was that almost all the documents we've been 00:12:10.899 --> 00:12:17.720 looking at from the cancellaria real which is 00:12:17.720 --> 00:12:20.320 to say the ones that are not the treasury records 00:12:20.320 --> 00:12:25.120 the ones that we've been looking at that are 00:12:25.120 --> 00:12:30.500 not the treasury records are really i think almost 00:12:30.500 --> 00:12:36.750 all sigelo secretum or secreto. The secret seal, 00:12:36.789 --> 00:12:38.990 which I've mentioned before, doesn't really mean 00:12:38.990 --> 00:12:41.429 like top secret in the sense that we would think 00:12:41.429 --> 00:12:44.450 of it today. It means more like private, but 00:12:44.450 --> 00:12:48.970 it is a higher level of protection for the document. 00:12:50.309 --> 00:12:53.450 And then also... One other thing I wanted to 00:12:53.450 --> 00:12:56.409 mention was that there were different rules for 00:12:56.409 --> 00:13:00.169 accessing different parts of the archive So if 00:13:00.169 --> 00:13:03.330 say you wanted to consult the archive because 00:13:03.330 --> 00:13:06.690 you had some kind of question about some kind 00:13:06.690 --> 00:13:10.570 of Authorization that was done say like you know 00:13:10.570 --> 00:13:12.929 ten years ago or something and you want to consult 00:13:12.929 --> 00:13:16.580 the archive. You're not allowed to unless you 00:13:16.580 --> 00:13:20.059 have a certain status in the government, you're 00:13:20.059 --> 00:13:26.299 not allowed to access the Sigillo Secreto as easily 00:13:26.299 --> 00:13:31.759 as you could some of the other seal levels. This 00:13:31.759 --> 00:13:39.340 one is at a lower security seal level. It is 00:13:39.340 --> 00:13:44.899 actually shared between some different registers. 00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:52.100 So the officialium and the commune, these both 00:13:52.100 --> 00:13:56.799 have this type of seal and I'm sure that it appears 00:13:56.799 --> 00:14:01.059 elsewhere. Are you ready to hear about the level 00:14:01.059 --> 00:14:03.399 of dedication that I'm bringing to this project? 00:14:04.399 --> 00:14:09.740 I tried to find the chancery copy of this letter. 00:14:10.539 --> 00:14:15.919 and I went to three different registers of Joan's, 00:14:16.899 --> 00:14:22.799 and I couldn't find it. I spent probably two 00:14:22.799 --> 00:14:25.740 hours flipping through, which was, I mean, that 00:14:25.740 --> 00:14:29.059 was an educational experience. I learned a bit 00:14:29.059 --> 00:14:31.720 more about the officialium, which I hadn't gotten 00:14:31.720 --> 00:14:36.159 into before, but yeah. I had to go, because they're 00:14:36.159 --> 00:14:41.399 out of order, in a span of 100 folios, which 00:14:41.399 --> 00:14:48.399 is to say 200 digitized images. I saw a mix of 00:14:48.399 --> 00:14:52.960 January and February documents in the officialium, 00:14:53.679 --> 00:15:00.970 and that was register 1825. Oh, sorry. That was 00:15:00.970 --> 00:15:05.789 not 1825. It was 1912. The officialium was 1912. 00:15:06.029 --> 00:15:10.370 I also looked at the commune, which was 1825. 00:15:11.529 --> 00:15:14.929 So I was going through and looking at the date. 00:15:15.350 --> 00:15:17.509 And then also what is helpful about the officialium 00:15:17.509 --> 00:15:20.190 is they put the person's name that the document 00:15:20.190 --> 00:15:23.269 is about as a header. So that's nice. You don't 00:15:23.269 --> 00:15:29.600 get that in the secret seal documents. So yeah, 00:15:29.840 --> 00:15:32.899 I flipped through there and I'm telling you it 00:15:32.899 --> 00:15:37.100 would be like four letters from February and 00:15:37.100 --> 00:15:40.279 then four letters from January and then four 00:15:40.279 --> 00:15:42.820 letters from early February and then four later 00:15:42.820 --> 00:15:45.440 letters from the end of February and then January 00:15:45.440 --> 00:15:52.039 back and forth back and forth and after 100 folios 00:15:52.039 --> 00:15:57.330 I did not find this document So I got to kind 00:15:57.330 --> 00:16:01.889 of the end of when January was appearing. And 00:16:01.889 --> 00:16:07.230 yeah, like 90 folios in January was still appearing 00:16:07.230 --> 00:16:09.929 in the middle of February. So yeah, there's no 00:16:09.929 --> 00:16:11.950 shortage of documents. I mean, that's one thing 00:16:11.950 --> 00:16:16.029 I can report after my fruitless treasure hunt 00:16:16.029 --> 00:16:19.730 for the copy of this document. There's other 00:16:19.730 --> 00:16:24.269 registers that it could be in. And if I have 00:16:24.269 --> 00:16:28.409 some additional time on my hands, I will tackle 00:16:28.409 --> 00:16:31.350 some of those other registers and see if I can 00:16:31.350 --> 00:16:33.590 find the copy, because that would just be kind 00:16:33.590 --> 00:16:37.269 of neat, you know, reuniting them in a way here 00:16:37.269 --> 00:16:42.330 in digital format. But it was not meant to be 00:16:42.330 --> 00:16:45.889 on this day when I was recording this episode. 00:16:46.850 --> 00:16:53.100 So that brings us to a close of this installment 00:16:53.100 --> 00:16:57.460 of the Historian's Notebook, Season 1, Molt Cara 00:16:57.460 --> 00:17:01.059 Companyona. If you are leaving with more questions 00:17:01.059 --> 00:17:05.559 than you arrived with, I've done my job. Remember, 00:17:05.880 --> 00:17:10.140 the motto of the Historian's Notebook is dissatisfaction 00:17:10.140 --> 00:17:13.180 guaranteed. So if you're feeling dissatisfied 00:17:13.180 --> 00:17:17.180 because I did not attempt to transcribe and translate 00:17:17.180 --> 00:17:25.539 this letter... Uh, wow. Give me a break. Come 00:17:25.539 --> 00:17:28.819 on. But your feelings are your feelings. So, 00:17:29.099 --> 00:17:31.980 okay. Dissatisfaction is guaranteed in that way. 00:17:32.299 --> 00:17:35.240 But maybe you also want to know more about the 00:17:35.240 --> 00:17:39.359 mail and couriers in the Middle Ages. There's 00:17:39.359 --> 00:17:42.180 so much more about that. And actually, I don't 00:17:42.180 --> 00:17:44.599 think I have any good articles handy. I went 00:17:44.599 --> 00:17:47.720 to some conference presentations on that, but 00:17:47.720 --> 00:17:52.299 I don't have any... articles ready to share about 00:17:52.299 --> 00:17:57.200 that, so I am once again delivering on dissatisfaction 00:17:57.200 --> 00:17:59.900 guaranteed. Hopefully I'll find one down the 00:17:59.900 --> 00:18:02.559 road and I'll come back and edit the web page 00:18:02.559 --> 00:18:06.680 for this episode and put that in. Speaking of 00:18:06.680 --> 00:18:09.180 the web page for this episode, please visit the 00:18:09.180 --> 00:18:14.119 website jonathanseyfried.net. There is a page 00:18:14.119 --> 00:18:18.670 for each day's document which contains the image 00:18:18.670 --> 00:18:25.930 and bibliography, sometimes my crutch of AI usage. 00:18:27.390 --> 00:18:31.549 So all of that is there. Check it out. And there's 00:18:31.549 --> 00:18:35.230 also a contact me form on that web page. I would 00:18:35.230 --> 00:18:37.210 love to hear from you. What's your response to 00:18:37.210 --> 00:18:41.490 all of this? Fill it out. I'll get back to you 00:18:41.490 --> 00:18:45.470 and listen again tomorrow to hear about the next 00:18:45.470 --> 00:18:48.779 day. in the first year of the reign of King Joan 00:18:48.779 --> 00:18:53.400 I of Aragon and Queen Violant de Bar. In the 00:18:53.400 --> 00:18:55.000 meantime, take care.